On 06/06/11 17:57, Paul Tansom wrote:
I don't know how many people watch Click on the BBC News channel, but I thought
I'd note that they had a piece on the Raspberry Pi on the last one (over the
weekend), with a mention of Ubuntu as part of a piece on the lack of decent IT
education in schools and the need to do it better - i.e. programming and more
in depth knowledge rather than just how to use MS Office.
It is available online at http://bbc.co.uk/click and for the moment is the top
item.
With only an outsider's knowledge of current education it seems to me
that education objectives for 'ICT' start with a given that you get
the basics by knowing which button to press for Microsoft Word etc.
Our local adult education place has a computer room with (literally)
wall to wall Microsoft, home made signs and posters full of
Microsoft-eeze.
Courses there can only be run by accredited trainers (I asked about
running one), and these have spent a lifetime learning Microsoft
stuff, and they are busy enough even now to want to avoid a
substantial change.
There is an overwhelming swirl and momentum of the broader
establishment which pulls (I was going to say 'sucks'...) into
Microsoft products.
I would expect that staff and students in a full ICT course all use
Windows on their computers, even though they might on occasions 'use'
Linux before they tick a box and go back to what they have on their
laptop. I would guess that even in many higher level computing
courses, this is also true, and Linux based OSs are on people's
laptops for daily use in only a very few cases.
The Government and its predecessor, is actively keen to encourage
wider use of open source: 'Government ICT Strategy' (March 2011)
http://bit.ly/e6Xpb2
it includes requiring 'mandatory open standards' for example and
explicitly mentions 'lengthy vendor lock-in'.
I talk to my local Adult Education Centre a couple of times a year,
mentioning Ubuntu, and it is only recently that there has been any
(even grudging) acceptance that FLOSS could be used, it seems that
something, maybe the strategy document above, may be prompting change.
--
alan cocks
Ubuntu user
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